Bye Bye Titty

David, my 4 year old, found the above note taped to our front door the other day. As always you can click the image to enlarge it, the names and phone numbers have been hidden to protect the stupid. It would appear that someone in my neighborhood is missing their cat and also that a village is missing their idiot. It is so sad to see things like this; parents allowing their kids to name the family pet “Titty.”

Yeah, I get it. It’s cute to have your infant name your new kitten and it was probably funny when she mispronounced “kitty” but that’s where it should have ended. It’s one thing to name a stuffed bear “Email,” because the kid keeps saying it, but it would be nice if parents possessed the common sense to veto names when they crossed the line. “Titty” definitely crosses the line.

As a parent, it’s important to remember that you are in charge here. This would have been a good opportunity to use your veto power, after all if you don’t exert your parental authority from time to time then you are really just the tall people that live in the house and pay the bills. That’s no fun. Sometimes I like to veto things and exert my parental authority for no other reason than to feel the rush of being powerful. The adrenaline surges to my head from having supreme executive power in my household. “This is not a democracy, it’s a dictatorship!” I like to say. I rule with an iron fist. Justice is swift and unmerciful. I have absolute dominion... you know... as long as that’s cool with my wife and all. She’s not reading this is she?

I can’t help but think of some of the conversations that must go on at Titty’s (Titties?) house. “Don’t chase Titty!” “You have to be nice to Titty.” “Have you seen Titty lately?” Those must be fun times.

Does anyone else remember when you were in middle school and you’d play a game where you combined the name of your first pet with the name of the street that you grew up on, and that was supposed to be what your “adult film” stage name would be? Yeah, this kid is going to rule that game. I don’t think that anything beats Titty Sunset.

It’s easy to forget in the midst of all this mocking that a family has lost their pet. I really do hope that they find Titty. Even though I’m not a cat person I would never wish any harm on Titty because I remember how sad I was when we lost our pet dog “Nipples.” I remember running around the neighborhood in tears yelling “has anyone seen my Nipples?”

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

About a week or two ago a friend of ours asked my wife to meet her 6 year old daughter as she was getting off the school bus and watch her for a couple of hours. To protect her identity I’ll call her Emma because it’s such a ridiculously popular name that it might as well be ‘Anonymous.’ With apologies to the millions upon millions of you out there who have named your daughter Emma. And yes I realize the irony in me writing that when my firstborn son is named David.

My wife has trouble saying “no” to anyone, a trait that has often worked in my favor, and so she agreed to watch Emma. My boys enjoyed playing with Emma at our house and she even helped my wife bake some cookies. Yes, things were going swimmingly until my wife announced that it was time to take her home.
“Awww, can’t I stay longer?” Emma pleaded.
“No honey, I have too many kids to take care of already,” replied my wife. That’s when it happened. Emma cocked her head to one side with a puzzled look on her face and thought for a second.
“But you only have two children,” said Emma who is from a family of three children, “how hard can that be?”

I am pleased to report that the doctors were able to successfully remove the spatula from Emma’s colon and she has been moved out of intensive care. She is expected to make a speedy recovery, and I’m assured that the emotional scars will heal in time too. Frankly, I think the experience will do wonders for her when she reaches the corporate world. If you openly mocked senior management like that you’d be packing your personal effects into a box within minutes. Maybe not literally within minutes, but you’d be gone just as quickly as senior management could find someone to tell them who you are, what department you’re in and how much they could save by replacing you with an intern or an easy button. (See, that’s how you take shots at senior management; from the brave anonymity of a pseudonym on an internet blog.)